Abstract
A fundamental problem for network analysis is the delineation of the fundamental structure of networks. Even more important is the delineation of changes in this network structure over time. We present a method for doing both for signed networks. The data come from the completed years of the Roberts US Supreme Court for the 2005 through 2018 terms. For the issues selected by the court for consideration in each term, the justices vote on the decision that will be issued by the court. These votes are either to support a decision or to dissent from it. These votes can be recorded into a signed 2-mode network. While we examine these networks, our primary focus is on the 1-mode projection from the 2-mode network with the justices as units. Using signed relaxed structural balance blockmodeling, we establish the fundamental structure of the relations between justices for each of the terms. For 13 of the 14 terms considered, the criterion function for the blockmodels is zero. This structure changes in clear ways and shows that the conventional divide between conservative and liberal justices is overly simplistic.
Highlights
We present a method for delineating change in the fundamental structure of a signed network
One, based on the Heider [10] foundation was created by Cartwright and Harary [12]. It states that if a signed network is structurally balanced it can be partitioned into two clusters such that all of the positive ties are within positions and all negative ties are between positions, the second, based on the work of Davis [13], extends this result to multiple positions
There can be no doubt about justices on the Supreme Court wanting to establish their legacies given the books they write about their work and the opinions they author
Summary
We present a method for delineating change in the fundamental structure of a signed network. This contribution is located in the intersection of three research areas: network partitioning; signed networks; and networks distributed in time.
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